


Marble, Not Stone

by sol_sikke



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Halamshiral (Dragon Age), I'm about to fight the entire Palace, Kinloch Hold (Dragon Age), PTSD, The Winter Palace (Dragon Age), everyone in Orlais is thirsty af, keep your hands to yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22121569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sol_sikke/pseuds/sol_sikke
Summary: DA:I oneshot set during the "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" quest. More or less this has to do with all of the weird and inappropriate attention Cullen gets at Halamshiral while Inky's off doing her thing. Inspired by Reddit user u/spookyhoods and their thread pertaining to Cole's comments about Cullen's experiences. More specifically inspired by their comment about how Inky never has the option to offer to "drop a mountain on these people".(Thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/eda8li/no_spoilers_cole_commenting_about_cullen_at_the/)
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	Marble, Not Stone

Having fought on both sides of the line, with swords and with scrolls, Cullen has learned that he prefers the battlefield.

He’d waged war in many places, from open fields to battlements, cramped towers and open stone courtyards, had his own blood spilled and spilled more in return, blurred days into weeks with minimal sleep and food, and had wondered more than once if he’d atoned for enough of his sins.

He’d found himself in heated debates with officers and scouts and advisors, forced to follow commands when all the discipline in the world couldn’t quiet the voice in his head that knew he was being made to do wrong. Eventually, he'd found himself issuing commands with the same tone and attitude when it was he who had risen to the top, though, he’d like to think, with a substantially larger dose of wisdom and altruism than he had known in the past decade.

For everything war had brought him, ten years on the battlefield versus ten minutes at Halamshiral has proven to him that he’d rather be carrying a blade than a wine glass.

There was a kind of honesty to battle that he hadn’t found a single shred of since entering the Winter Palace, and the appraising glances that run the full length of his body—lingering longer in some places than others—make him regret taking off his breastplate for the night.

In truth, he’d expected the multitude of prying eyes when he'd been introduced at the beginning of the festivities. He was not one of them and nobody was foolish enough to think so; he had fully expected to be weighed and measured in turn with Sigrid and the small escorting party they’d brought along to represent the Inquisition.

Now with the festivities in full swing, Cullen lets himself stroll around the upper level of the hall, and despite the fact that his eyes are scanning constantly for anything or anyone that is out of place, he might be aimlessly wandering about, taking in the sights and the sounds and enjoying the party.

The first thing he'd noticed upon arrival was that the other guests would be nearly impossible to identify; the sea of faces that surround him are either painted or masked all together, ill intentions hidden behind pristine porcelain. Though their smiles are painted on or very nearly hidden by high, ruffling collars that climb their necks like malicious vines, Cullen never loses sight of their eyes and the crinkles that form from anything other than mirth.

The myriad of voices, all of them set to the exact same level of polite tone, merge together with the orchestration that echoes around the hall to form a kind of buzzing in the back of his head. He plots a course for one of the high windows—he figures if he can at least glance outside every now and again, it will make being trapped in the Palace less irritating—but he hasn’t made it halfway there when a gloved hand claps against his ass, deliberately so and longer than an accidental, impolite collision.

He jerks forward, pivoting to get a full view of the person who’d just touched him even as he continues to put space between the two of them, but of course the face that meets his is half metal, half riddled with nondescript stubble. Impossible to identify.

“Did you just—” Cullen splutters, caught halfway between indignation and the knowledge that if he were to dress the man down in public, it would do little to further the overall cause. At the moment, though, it’s tempting, diplomacy be damned.

“I’m a weak man,” the Orlesian purrs, and the wink is exaggerated, theatrical. Cullen is meant to see it, and his own expression grows dour in spite of his best efforts to remain neutral.

“Oh, come, come now, you Fereldens are so uptight,” the masked man says, and chuckles lightheartedly before assuming a more comfortable looking stance. It is the look of a man who intends to stay for a while, and Cullen inches ever closer to the high-reaching window.

If only he could see outside, to catch a glimpse of something that was not opulent from beginning to end, even if he had to strain his eyes for several miles in every direction.

As he pretends to be lost in his surroundings, several more guests wander over and begin chatting among themselves, though how any of the court’s guests could tell each other apart is beyond him. Every voice of an identical, simpering tone; every eye narrowing as words are spoken in perfect timing; smiles which are patronizing at best.

Was it just and fair, or perhaps dramatic, to label them as smirks and sneers?

He’d already heard a wide array of disingenuous comments pertaining to every member of the Inquisition’s representative party, seen the contrast of polite comments to their faces and scathing remarks behind their backs moments later. He could only imagine what they had to say of him.

Cullen Rutherford. Survivor of the massacre at Kinloch Hold, the one who had risen quickly under Knight-Commander Meredith’s power only to turn on her at the last possible second. That certainly was a double-edged sword, indeed. Those seeking to crush the mages would call him weak, pathetic, a sympathizer for turning on Meredith at the last second. Those who championed the cause would vilify him for standing with her in the first place. And now here he was, having been transferred from faction to faction, bounced from one disaster to the next until he wound up here, with her. With Sigrid.

The Herald of Andraste, if the reverent whispers and eyewitness accounts were true. Despite her supposed status, though, Cullen knew what Orlais thought of her. Hisses and worse of a Marcher being the Inquisitor, and a _mage_ no less, and didn’t the Maker have a funny sense of humor sending _her_.

But there was something in her eyes when he looked at her, an underlying fear that was utterly human and about as far from divine creation as one could get. Cullen recognized that fear, and had more than once wondered if the good she did, if the wounds she healed despite how good she was at causing them, was a fight against her nature. A fight to bring about something good when succumbing to her her fear and the anger it became on the battlefield would have her doing more harm than good.

Perhaps he was only trying to comfort himself, but the parallels were there, and once they'd lodged in his head, Cullen hadn't been able to forget them.

Nor had he been able to forget his feelings for her.

"Care to dance, Commander?"

The question comes from another porcelain doll that's approached him, the winged tips of her mask glinting in the candlelight like daggers as her gloved hand darts out and squeezes his shoulder. Clearly meant to be mistaken for polite, yet in earnest intended to grip and gauge the muscle beneath and let him know he is no more than a piece of meat.

“No,” he says, rather sharply, then clears his throat and takes a half step back. “No, thank you.”

“You are sure?” the woman presses, and the insistence of her tone matches the tightening of her grip.

“I’m here on a matter of diplomacy; I’m afraid I’ve no time,” Cullen says stiffly, brushing her hand off his arm as he speaks.

She titters at him, then, shaking her head with a patronizing smile.

“Tsk, tsk. A shame, really. What might have _been_.”

The subtext of her words leaves a chill long after she has gone to descend upon new prey. Watching her go with burning contempt, Cullen feels the snarl form on his lips before he is able to stop himself, and wonders if anyone has seen it.

Deep down, he knows what it is.

Lack of control over the situation is already beginning to sit wrong with him, and he has been trapped in walls before.

Trapped with, and at the mercy of, those who cared little for his boundaries and only for his deepest desires.

 _Now, now,_ he chides himself. _It’s hardly Kin—it’s hardly the tower. Look how many exits there are. The only barriers in place are notions of what would and would not be polite course of action._

The honesty of battle indeed.

In battle, there were eyes flaming with lyrium and madness, swords and teeth bared alike with blood adorning both. Their cause against yours, their god against yours, and only blood to settle which belief rang truer, stronger, victorious. But here, at Halamshiral, it is a game of chess, the pieces moved by hands gloved in silk, clutching tiny, crystalline glasses of exorbitantly expensive wine, blows dealt with the sharpness of a tongue or the pitying chuckle of an heiress who would as quickly cut your throat as ask you to dance.

Cullen watches the masked woman go, not out of intrigue but rather to make sure she was gone for good, well and properly distracted by another of her masked companions. As he scans the crowd, he notices Sigrid across the way. Despite her shorter stature, it is easy to spot her among the crowd, ashy hair flowing freely over a fiery red coat in a fierce contrast to the platinums and dark blues and vivid golds of the court and its guests.

Several of the Palace’s guests—some belonging to the Inquisition, others belonging to the court itself—try to stop her along the way, and she excuses herself from each, always with a quick glance towards Cullen and then a grim, polite smile to whomever had attempted to capture her.

And then she is before him, stiffly formal with her head held high and hands folded behind her back. She approaches him with a tense nod, gesturing for him to follow her away from listening ears. Taking refuge behind one of the adjacent pillars, they quickly cover the subjects of mutual advice, fair claim, and anything successfully observed or overheard.

She’s nervous; he can read it in her face, in her body language, in the clipped manner of her speech. How rigidly holds herself as though a plank were running down her spine, and how uncomfortable she looks to have her hair down, long and pressed and in her way. So unlike the woman with the messy hair twisted atop her head as she lunged towards and away from him on the training grounds; the woman who stayed up long beyond a time of reason with him poring over battle plans and scout reports until both their words were slurred and barely cohesive, their thought processes delirious.

It is, and had been, Cullen’s considered opinion that the Inquisitor was her best self when she was anything but the flawless picture of someone ordained.

Formal matters attended to for the moment, Sigrid seems to relax a bit, though the disgust only grows in her eyes as she looks around the Palace.

“The sooner we track down this infiltrator, the better,” she mutters, echoing Cullen’s thoughts. “I don’t care for events like these. I understand we’re the Duke’s guests, and outsiders more than that, but Andraste preserve me, now I know what it feels like to be meat hanging in a butcher’s window.”

“What have you heard?”

“Oh, nothing incriminating yet. Certainly nothing dangerous, at least for now. I haven't been on the receiving end of threats. But this whole court? I thought Orlesians were supposed to be ‘proper,’ but you should _hear_ what they’re saying about Josephine and Bull. I assume Dorian’s getting his fair share of propositions as well. And I can only _imagine_ what they’d say about you.”

“Never mind what they say—what they _would_ say about me,” Cullen says, perhaps a bit too quickly, and Sigrid raises an eyebrow at him.

“Anyone you need me to smite?” Her tone is jocular, but only mildly so, and Cullen is not unaware of the pseudo-honesty of her offer.

“Save it,” he says, resting a hand on hers. “I’m fine.”

“Cullen—”

"As your advisor, I feel it my duty to inform you that bringing down the ceiling on half the court will not help us navigate this, shall we say, _delicate_ political situation," he responds, in such a grave tone that Sigrid cannot help but laugh.

"Alright," she says, pulling at the hems of her gloves. “I should go; I need to make the rounds. Josephine looks like she’s about to come down with the biggest headache of her life, Leliana’s asked to speak with me, and I need to check in with Bull. Keep an eye out. You’ll be alright here with them?”

He nods, and both the spoken and unspoken pass between them.

“I’ll await your signal.”

_I’ll watch out for you._

Cullen watches her go, and a new exclamatory, sugary voice breaks his focus as another masked woman appears at his side.

“Commander!”

She holds a drink in each hand and pushes one towards him, ignoring his denial. Cullen raises his palm to halt the offer, shaking his head, yet the smooth, paper-thin flute is pushed against his palm so insistently he thinks it might break. For a moment they find themselves at an impasse, until the woman insists that, "You look so disenchanted; you’ll never find yourself under gaze of fairer eyes if you don’t relax. Someone may think something is wrong, no?"

Reflexively, he grips the drink, stuttering through thanks that are nearly strangled by the rising tightness in his throat. Etiquette wrestles with the anger that’s brewing, and brewing quickly at that. Was there even anything to be angry about? He doesn’t know anymore. There was truth somewhere between the irritation he felt on particularly bad days of his withdrawal, and the fact that their insistence, their disregard for his wishes and boundaries, rings true to his past.

And there they are again; memories of Kinloch, closer this time. Despite the heavily perfumed air, Cullen smells stone and blood. The thought is a sharp, icy stab somewhere in between his ribs, gone as quickly as it began, but the phantom of remembered pain is enough to set his heart pounding and then he sees the drink begin to shake in his hand, little jitters along the surface like raindrops peppering the top of a lake.

_No._

_You’re not at Kinloch. You’re in the Winter Palace. Look outside. No lakes. Courtyards and gardens._ _Open land._

The woman who had forced the drink into his hand titters at his reaction which, despite his best attempts, has not gone unnoticed. Her laugh is that of a mother laughing at a child, and she chides him even as she reaches forward. In his moment of trying to get his bearings, Cullen does not move away. Before he has time to realize what’s happening, her gloved hand is on his face, tracing the length from temple to jaw and under his chin before she pulls her hand back, smirking at him.

“Do you see? I was right! Look at you, shaking like a leaf. I have felt it! You must _relax,_ Commander. Certainly a guest of the Grand Duke has no reason to find himself on edge. Come, come, now. Drink up! Oh, do excuse me. I see an old friend I simply _must_ greet.” 

In a bit of a hurry, the masked woman curtsies before making her way towards the steps, brushing past the guard and heading for the lower level of the hall.

Cullen waits until she’s out of sight and dumps the flute’s contents into the nearest potted plant before turning back to his work, surveying the area, but the next time he looks for the Inquisitor, the vibrant red of her coat has vanished from the floor below.

Still, there is much to be seen.

Cullen lets his eyes wander the Palace, his forearms resting against the marble railing until inevitably another trilling, Orlesian voice trills his title, another silken glove plants firmly on his shoulder, spinning him around. The person touching him gesticulates and exclaims as though they are old friends reuniting, but Cullen keeps his eyes on theirs.

* * *

The wooden framework of the lattice digs into the joints of Sigrid’s fingers as she claws her way up the wall of the gardens, wondering if her boots are scuffing the pristine white of the paint and knowing the best way for someone to determine where she’d gone would be clues such as these.

For as much as it was a matter of timing, it was also a matter of luck. As the night's festivities had progressed and the sun had set behind the mountains, the cold, sharp air had begun to bite at those clothed in metal and silk and little else. One by one, Sigrid had watched the Palace’s guests theatrically shudder, perhaps rubbing their hands together once or twice for affect, before heading back to the main hall.

Even capitalizing on this bit of luck had required enduring several minutes of terribly dull yet notably pointed conversation with one of the guests before he too had retreated inside, with Sigrid promising to follow him in just a moment, tossing a convincing wink his way. It had been performed and received so well that the action itself—and the way he’d licked his lips in response—had almost made her sick.

And now, the moment had passed. Time to use her luck or lose it. She hasn’t got long.

Sigrid hoists herself up the last of the framing and scrambles to her feet, tossing a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure that all of the bodies close to the windows were, in fact, facing the other way. Despite being the official formal wear of the Inquisition, blood red was not, perhaps, the stealthiest color for a mission such as this.

Pushing open the magnificent azure doors, Sigrid finds herself in the grand library. It is an elegant splay of gray and blue, with bookshelves, statues, and plaques equally placed around the room, displaying several windows to the left and a smaller number of doors opposite them.

Knowing she cannot afford to be heard, Sigrid all but tiptoes through the only unlocked door in the room. Making her way down a flight of stone steps, her eyes are met with an even wider array of books, all of them neatly cataloged. Not a single page must be out of place in the whole library, and such a level of precision is more or less to be expected; someone as powerful as the Empress would not be careless in hiding her secrets or protecting her allies.

Especially this supposed, occult advisor.

Sigrid lets her fingers trace over the spines of the books, feeling for papers tucked between them, occasionally pulling the books to see if any secret doors will open, but with no favorable result. The seconds tick by, perhaps faster in her mind than in truth. She hears no whispered conversations as she had back in the main hall of the palace, nor do the footsteps of patrolling guards meet her ears. Ostensibly, she has the entire library to herself, and this is a bit of good fortune she hardly dares believe.

Which is why she is taken aback when she hears her own name, uttered in a voice as ghostly as the one who speaks it.

“Sigrid.”

She turns to find Cole standing with his back to the balcony, hands clasped together, nervously swaying from side to side, no more perceptible than a sapling in an early spring breeze but still rife with apprehension. His hair glints like white gold against the flickering candle light, and his skin nearly matches the porcelain façades worn by the ball’s attendees.

He'd never once used any of her official titles, and it would have been refreshing in a way—grounding, even—had he at least chosen some sort of nickname by which to call her. But he so rarely called her _anything_ , more often than not expressing whatever was on his mind with little preamble. The fact that he'd taken the time to call her by name lets Sigrid know that, time and reputation be damned, she should stop and listen.

“Cole?”

“You need to get back.” His words are clipped, insistent.

She tries to offer him a reassuring smile. “I’ve not been gone long, Cole. They’ll hardly notice I'm missing. And if they do, surely Leliana or Josephine could make a proper excuse on my behalf for a little while at least.”

“That’s not what I _mean_ ,” Cole says, his voice growing tense, distressed, in the way it did when he knew that extending a helping hand was neither wanted nor possible. Sigrid notices with a kind of pity that makes her heart hurt that Cole, only Cole, for as much as he knew, could still find it within himself to want to ease the suffering of those with knives behind every smile.

“They have faces inside their faces, lying with a layer that tells the truth. I don’t know how to help them. But he…he is alone.”

“Who is alone?” Sigrid asks. “Is it the Duke? Gaspard? Is he being targeted?”

“He is raw, nervous, an exposed nerve being stretched too thin. They fawn and fondle, flaying him under their touch.”

The breath goes from Sigrid’s lungs, less as though the wind had been knocked from her in one solid blow and more as if she’d simply forgotten to breathe as concern wraps its tendrils around her chest.

“Cullen."

"Cullen is afraid."

"Is he okay?"

"They’re hunting him, following fear. He shouldn’t be here.”

The words that follow have Sigrid all but jogging from the grand library, back up the stone steps and across the balcony to the white wooden lattice. As she goes, she realizes she has never cared less for the nature of dealing in politics. "Delicate political situation," indeed.

It could wait.

He could not.

Even as she is clawing her way down the garden wall, Cole's words ring in her ears.

_“He can no longer tell marble from stone.”_

* * *

Even now, close to a decade later, Cullen remembers Kinloch. The rituals and the massacre that had followed in the cyclic occurrence of temptation, possession, and slaughter.

The mages had been clumsy when handling the task of first trying to break him, and the demons they'd summoned had reflected their ignorance as they collectively played off the desires they had leeched from their other victims. Taking beautiful forms, their hands and mouths on him. But even as they’d groped his body, he’d felt the demons wriggling around in his head, parasites searching for a host. In a way, it had not been so bad when there had been multiples; all of his lesser desires attacking him at once hadn't held a candle to one person they'd finally learned to be his weakness.

It had gone on like this for days, on and off. They had not let him sleep, and by the third day, Cullen was no longer sure which hallucinations had been of their making or his as they tried to find that one, specific crack in his armor.

Eventually, they'd found it.

Cullen had never been lucky enough to fully dissociate from the event, because they had been in his mind and there had been no escaping those shackles. He'd been cursed with minimal gaps in his memories of the event, even when extreme fatigue had taken hold.

Around him, the Orlesians hold full conversations with each other and with him, despite the fact that he hasn't spoken a multisyllabic word in the last half hour. Despite his obvious lack of interest and even outward rebuttal, the women float around him, laying their hands on him as if conversationally, but not _every_ laugh needed to be punctuated with touch. Not every question required one’s face to be inches away from yours to convey sincere interest. Not every greeting among strangers was like that of old friends, and Cullen’s had his face kissed in greeting by complete strangers so many times now that he imagines his skin going raw beneath the touch of so many scruffy cheeks and cold, metal masks.

Maker’s breath, how he wished for his armor.

But while he is without armor, he is not without protection.

As Sigrid makes her way back from the gardens, it takes her no more than a moment or two to spot him. He has accumulated a gathering twice as large as before, and while he stands tall, unfaltering, she knows he’s in trouble. It isn't any specific thing that tips her off, but he'd alluded to disliking crowded spaces, especially unfamiliar ones. And while he'd only briefly spoken of his past, the buzzwords included—"imprisoned" and "tortured" among them—had painted enough of a picture for Sigrid to know that something like this had a very good chance of sending Cullen back to the worst places of his past.

She makes a beeline for him, nearly shoving people out of her way as she goes. _A time like this,_ she thinks hotly, _is no time to be polite._

She sees him shake his head for the fifth time in as many minutes, and quickens her pace.

 _It’s not Kinloch,_ Cullen tells himself, shaking his head “no” again at some proposition or another, trying to find something he can focus on instead.

The old tricks.

_What is your name?_

_Where are you?_

_What do you see?_

_Describe the setting._

Cullen has no sooner begun to center his thoughts once more when there is yet another hand on his arm, barely ghosting, a gentle touch to draw his attention. In the wake of recent encounters, he yanks his arm away before turning to see that it is not another traditional guest of the court, but the Inquisitor herself.

At the sight of fire in his eyes, she grimaces her apology.

_I’m sorry. I know you don’t like being touched._

He gives an almost imperceptible nod, though his eyes blaze. Half of him is in control, and half of him is wriggling with anxiety and the anger it brings.

“Commander, if you’ve a moment? I have news. You’ll have to excuse him,” she speaks tersely to the group, no longer playing the part of a humble guest.

Cullen falls in stride next to her, and she does not look at him as she speaks. “Eyes straight ahead. They won’t try to approach you unless you’re alone. It's alright; we’re almost outside.”

They escape into the biting night air, and Sigrid closes the doors behind them. With the party concealed inside, the night is blissfully calm and quiet, and Cullen lowers himself onto one of the stone benches with the comparable fatigue of someone walking for days without rest. He tilts his head upward, as if stargazing, but his eyes remain firmly shut, and Sigrid hears him taking deep, heavy breaths.

Tentatively, Sigrid moves for the same bench, and at the sound of her footsteps, Cullen opens his eyes to watch her approach. She does so slowly, wanting to give him every chance to halt her, but he does nothing.

“Are you alright?” Sigrid asks quietly, perching on the end of the seat.

No response.

“You had a…bit of a gathering there.”

“Bull isn’t the only one who can mingle.” Cullen tries to sound aloof, even a little witty, but she knows he's still firmly in the grips of whatever has reemerged from his memory.

“I’ve seen mingling; that wasn’t it.” Despite the sarcasm of her words, her tone is gentle, allowing him some space between what he felt his responsibilities were and the skeletons that banged and clawed against the walls.

After what feels like an endless silence, broken only by the sound of Cullen trying to even out his breath, he looks over to her, and his eyes are still half-empty.

She reaches for him, slowly, letting her hand stop a few inches before making contact, giving him the chance to advance into her or pull back, and he twitches away. The motion is so small that it could be considered unintentional, but the tiny jerk of his arm is enough to let her know where he yet stands. She has only the faintest idea of what she’s witnessing, and she could reasonably guess, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is she needs to bring him back.

“Okay,” Sigrid whispers. "I won't touch you. I'll stay over here. But can I say something?”

The tiniest of nods as he turns his eyes upward again, and this time she can see him actively exploring the night sky.

"You're not back there. Whatever they did to you, they can never do to you again. You're at Halamshiral, and you're with me, and you’re safe. Granted, in a less than optimal place with less than optimal people, but you are _safe_."

Cullen clears his throat, roughly so, and when his gaze meets hers, he looks less adrift.

"You're safe," she repeats again, quieter this time. "These walls are marble, not stone.”

“Was it that obvious?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck and asking some spot on the ground before forcing his eyes back to her.

“Only in your eyes. But," she smiles, "I don't see it anymore."

Still he does not reach for her, and she will not try to comfort with touch, but his eyes, she notices, have perhaps never looked so full of gratitude and warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you all for reading, commenting, and/or leaving kudos. Oh, and for indulging my tendencies for either self-salting or wish fulfillment. (Or both.) 
> 
> xx


End file.
